Just had a fun ride about 1 hour ago..Magnitude 3.7 about 3 miles away..shook the apartment for about 6 seconds..and was one of the few I actually HEARD as well as felt... http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc71736351.html#maps I'm not too scared of them, but Dear Wife panicked and ran outside in her PJs...as well as most of our neighbors.. I guess as a Californian, I'm used to 'em and I'm actually rather excited by the minor ones... Anyone else rather jaded towards potential natural disasters?
A 3.7 that close would be a fun-ride for me, nothing more, because I've lived in earthquake country for a long time. I'd just as soon skip hurricanes and tornadoes, though, and floods, too.
I survived the quake of '89. (6.9). Been out the earthquake zone for 10 years. Now I have to worry about snow.
I grew up in California, so earthquakes were nothing unusual. I even got to Whittier just in time for the big quake there, in my freshman year of college. Hurricanes, however, I could do without. I went through Hurricane Ike in our little house and that was some pretty scary shit. The sheer NOISE of it, watching the windows bend, feeling the house sway nonstop for 6 or 7 hours straight, a week without power in the intense heat and humidity---no thanks. I'll pass on that.
Ah, Loma Prieta, I remember you well. Granted I was a little kid watching Cartoons at the time, but I still remember it. Still, the best part of minor Earthquakes is watching the local news coverage, they let people call in and tell their tale of what happened, usually going like this: "I was at home, alone, watching the TV, when all of a sudden the dog started barking. It was like he KNEW! Then the house started shaking and I knew it was an Earthquake! I held onto my chair, riding it out." And was there any damage? "Oh no, a couple of things fell off the mantle." Thanks for your call, and now Bartholemew in Benecia, what can you tell us about the Earthquake? "I was at home, alone, watching the TV, when all of a sudden the dog started barking..."
I was on the road with my college jazz band when Loma Prieta went down. We all sat there in our hotel rooms watching the coverage for a fair whack of time. We noticed this mainly because some whackjob had predicted that a quake would hit right in the middle of Missouri (where we were) about the same time. It never happened.
A 3.7? That's a baby quake. It has to go over 5 before I'm impressed. It's like a hurricane down here. It has to be at least a strong cat 2 before I take real notice.
I'm glad to live in a country that doesn't really "do" serious natural disasters barring a bit of localised flooding or mild drought every once in a while... they are saying we might get a drought this summer, mind...
Of course, that also means we're hopeless when things deviate even slightly from the norm. The manager at my voluntary work placement is Polish, and often comments on how England, at least the south, basically shuts down over an inch of snow. Snow is the English kryptonite; we are powerless against it. While the Polish or Russians or Americans can have their cars buried and still function effectively, we just stand around uselessly when it's 3 centimetres thick.
Er, not quite all Americans. Yankees, yes, but those of us here in the South are quite useless when there's even a dusting, and *everything* shuts down. But the only natural disaster we encounter around here are tornadoes. After last year though, I wouldn't say anyone is the least bit jaded about it, either. Actually, quite a bit jumpy every time the sirens go off.
True, this. The thing is, snow is just rare enough esp. in the south that we forget how to cope. None of us have snow tyres/chains, we all assume the gritters and ploughs can keep things open, and we never leave enough extra time for journeys. The idea of journey disruption due to weather conditions seems so outlandish that we just can't cope with it when it does happen. Plus, a secret part of us all loves complaining about the disruption...
Which I didn't feel at all and was oblivious to. I was driving on the highway when the 5.9 shook the DC area and had no idea that anything had happened. Everyone was all freaking out and I was just like "what?".
Whats worse is the images that go out nationally:Fires and collapsed buildings/roadways/bridges. People from out of the area thought the Bay Area was suffering a disaster of Biblical proportions!!!
And then again, sometimes the news people struggle to come up with any good pictures to put on the air. A few years ago, there was a fairly strong quake in Southern California (5.5 magnitude) which happened during the middle of the day on a weekday. Unfortunately for TV, nothing burned, nothing of any significant size fell over or collapsed, no one was injured - they had nothing to show. The TV and radio news anchors were pleading for reports of anything they could send a camera truck or a microphone guy out to cover, but I think the worst thing which happened within the first hour and a half was that a few people were trapped briefly in an elevator due to a power outage. Problem was, the epicenter was in an undeveloped hilly region separating the heavily-populated Fullerton/Anaheim Hills area from the heavily-populated Corona/Riverside area. It was later learned that a significant amount of work would be required to repair damage to older buildings which remained standing and a fair amount of clean-up was needed at stores whose stock had jumped off the shelves into the aisles, but it had to be the most frustrating thing for the news people whose job it was to make exciting an earthquake which simply refused to deliver any really riveting mayhem or destruction.
Well, it was 84 miles away from D.C. though still not anything to sneeze at. However, I had something turn up in my news feed today which helps put things in perspective. Accompanying this article is a video which shows seismic activity worldwide for the year 2011. (The main part of the clip presents the twelve-month period in a little over six minutes, and I think only quakes of magnitude 4.5 and greater are reflected.) The August 23 Mineral, VA quake is easily spotted (not least because things were pretty quiet seismically in North America last year) but the real highlight happens quite a bit earlier in the sequence - look for it in early March.
Last year, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake hit my area as well. It was night and I was sitting on my bed listening to music and felt the bed shake. I was like: what the hell?! It was an earthquake. It happened because about 25 miles away from my house, they were drilling for oil wells. Kinda creeped me out but wasn't jaded about it. I'm more scared and jaded about tornadoes and bad storms cause I'm in tornado alley!